


Sanctuary

by SuperMutantMeatShield



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Love Triangles, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:33:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperMutantMeatShield/pseuds/SuperMutantMeatShield
Summary: Following the emotional fallout of the Institute's destruction and Liam Binet's suicide, Nate disappears into the wild wasteland without a trace. With a harsh winter at the brink of bearing down on the Commonwealth, Piper Wright doesn't give up hope that her companion is alive and it takes months until she gets a tip and sets off for the north, towards a haunt of Nate's past.Two part story. Set after the main plot of Fallout 4.





	1. Detour Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> My laptop crashed and with it I've lost most of my work on the next chapter of DTOTB. Sorry dudes, my bad! Feeling unmotivated to say the least. Thankfully my feels for MSS/Piper are still goin' strong and this draft was sitting around on my phone from awhile back. This was initially the first MSS/Piper story I ever worked on so I hope the ideas still hold up. At least, I think it works in the DTOTB universe as well :)
> 
> This story was written with a Railroad ending in mind by the way! Liam Binet's (aka Patriot) suicide note has always stuck with me since my RR playthrough and I thought it deserved to be written into a story. If I can remember correctly it was a pretty damning note aimed at the Sole Survivor and I just thought there had to be some emotional toil along with that that wasn't really reflected on in-game (other than his lil funeral in the middle of HQ as I can recall).

December, 2288

 

Piper felt a burning in her nostrils through the ventilation of her yellow flight helmet, of the stench of toasted garbage as she crossed over onto a street lined with prefabricated houses in various states of dilapidation. The icy wind must have picked up the scent as it rattled the trees in the wood around the quiet suburb. She had to admit to herself that the awful smell was a good thing, that one of the homesteads held signs of activity and life.

That comfort turned out to be only momentary when she saw the metallic shell of a turret around the bend. Abandoning her hiking pack on the road, she ducked behind the cover of a chipped picket fence, readying her pistol in shaking hands before noticing, embarrassingly, that the turret wasn't emitting any aural indication that it was active. The whirring of the machine panning on its stand was usually a clear enough sign but she peeked over the tip of the fence to see that the turret was in similar ruin to the other constructions surrounding her. 

“Shit. This is going just great so far, Piper.” She said to herself, stuffing her gun into the pocket of her coat. She looked back to the bridge she'd just come over and then down another way towards the end of the cul-de-sac, where an impressive tree loomed dead over the neighborhood. There must have been at least a dozen homes, she estimated, inspecting each one would prove to be a big chore if he'd already moved on from here. Wisps of black smoke rising from behind one of the houses gave her some much needed optimism though.

The particular home stood out with long pieces of cloth and tarp duct-taped over each of its windows and the front door was mostly intact with dirty towels rolled up under the sill. It looked like someone had at least made an effort to make it habitable, especially with the coming of a harsh winter in the Commonwealth, but it seemed to Piper like it was a bit too late for that kind of preparation. 

She stepped over an uprooted tree trunk near one of the windows and attempted to take a peek by pulling back the tape around a torn bedsheet. 

“Leave it!” A voice barked from a distance behind her.

In an instant, the journalist froze. It wasn't her first time in a situation where she was caught snooping so she knew that any quick movements wouldn't do her any service. She also knew, with a hollow feeling in her gut, just what the disciplined trigger-mind of the person the voice belonged to was capable of: the flight helmet over her head and face sure as hell wouldn't make a difference when her brains spilled on the lawn.

“I said leave it!” His warning shot shook her to the core as she heard it fire straight into the ground a few paces behind her. “I'm coming down. I swear to Christ if you move I'll fuckin' blow your scavving ass all over the place.”

Piper wished that she could turn to see what he was doing, climbing down from a roof, because he took a damn lot of time to do so. She couldn't speak, terrified that he'd fire anyway, even before he recognized her voice.

“Might as well take a shit on my doorstep while you're at it.” He was much closer now. Piper's knees wobbled as he racked a new bullet into the chamber of the gun. “Get on your knees.”

She didn't move, paralyzed on the spot. He was mean, with the horrible combination of being stinking drunk from the sound of it. 

“C'mon, man, I've had a bad week so I don't want this to take long. I gotta search you. Get down.” When she defied him again he grabbed her shoulder and forced her onto the ground. "Take the bucket off of your head."

Piper whimpered as she lifted the helmet off. The cool instantly stuck to her damp cheeks, letting her black hair fall over her face. The violence never came, of course, that wasn't his nature. There was silence which was then interrupted briefly by a gun hitting the dirt.

“Jesus, Blue!” She said, sniffling. “You done?!”

“Yeah.” His voice cracked. “You can... get up. I'm so sorry.”

She left the helmet and her bag on the ground and got to her feet, brushing the dirt off of her pants. “I'm still shaking, jeez.” 

“Me too, Piper.”

She turned around to see a man who'd somehow declined pretty drastically all but in a few months. Nate was dressed poorly for the bitter cold in a button down shirt with a frayed t-shirt underneath. His clothes hung off his body. When Piper had first met him he hadn't been out of shape per se, but he'd been a lot heavier than he was now. Heavy in the sense that before getting frozen in a Vault he'd been a retired army man who'd just had a kid and had come to enjoy more than a few home-cooked meals after the slew of MREs he'd become accustomed to in the service. Come to think of it, most people in the Commonwealth were malnourished but Nate looked to be at an extreme. Haggard and hollowed-out in the face, his grey eyes had most notably lost their lustre as he watched her without feeling. He had time to do one other drastic thing, too, having shaved all of his hair and beard off with a combat knife it seemed. Dark red nicks marked his chin and temples.

Piper could have cried more right there and then, to see her friend in such a terrible state, but she was just too relieved to have found him after doubting for so long that he was even alive.

“Can I give you a hug?” She giggled awkwardly, moving towards him with her arms open.

“Yeah, sure. Thought you'd want to hit me or at least be super mad.” He returned her embrace. “Just so you'll hear it right now I'm sorry, eh? I should've at least --”

She gave him a knowing smile. “Hey, I had more than a few months to be mad – and hurt – that you disappeared like that. I'm here to talk so we'll talk in a bit... this your little hideaway? Why here, anyway?”

He dodged her question without a blink, most likely aided by his drunkenness, and hobbled over to the door. “Why don't you come on in and you'll see?”

~

The house was a calculated mess by wasteland standards. Darkened and dimmed by the windows being covered up, Nate had a few industrial lamps placed around the living room and kitchen areas that were powered by a small generator that could be heard puttering on the other side of the back door. Cupboards had been torn apart but there was little to no clutter around save for empty beer bottles and tools: hammers, screwdrivers, a bright red toolbox, gloves, towels, a filthy mop. There was a long couch, where Piper had left her coat, that had been patched up with different colored pieces of cloth in the center of the room facing a blank wall (the Radiation King TV set would later be discovered smashed to bits in the trash pyre in his backyard).

“Welcome to my little sanctuary.” Nate chuckled, though the laugh was tainted with a hint of pain too.

“Nice... set-up, Blue. Cozy.”

“I'm trying. Have a seat anywhere, I guess.”

“What happened to your leg?” She asked noting his limp as she took a chair at the kitchen table. 

“Legs.” He corrected heading to the fridge. “Fell off the roof trying to cover up the holes. Want a drink? They're kinda warm.”

“Have you got any decent water?”

“Ha! 'Decent water' begs the legendary wasteland reporter.” He cracked open a beer from the fridge and eyed her in jest as he sipped. “How about a beer, Pipes?”

“That no label brew? Can you really stomach that trash?”

“It grows on you.”

“Sure. I'm good. Think I've got water in my bag anyway.”

“Have it your way.” He sat down in the chair opposite to hers.

“Look, I didn't come here to get drunk with you 'like old times', Blue. Or whatever.”

“Why did you come? How did you even find me?”

“Nate, I care about you.” She rasped. “When I woke up and you were gone I guess I thought it was some stupid romantic thing where you'd come back with food and we'd stay naked and eat snack cakes in bed 'til Nat got home from school. You were a wreck after the whole thing with Patriot offing himself, I know, but I didn't think it would be enough that you'd up and leave me and Nick, the city, your friends. Are we even your friends?”

“Piper.” He cautioned. “It wasn't about you. It had nothing to do with you. Or Nick.”

“Then what?” She said. “I just walked from D.C. all the way up to this middle-of-nowhere drag so let me hear it!”

He scratched his head and then leaned over his elbows on the table. “Okay. Maybe... maybe Liam Binet's suicide and that damn note he left for me was the straw that broke me, alright? It brought a lot of shit to the surface that had been living in and eating at me for awhile.”

“Blue! Why did you leave me in the dark?” She reached across to grab his hand but he pulled away before she could.

“I didn't want to... but I also didn't want to put that shit on your shoulders. You're the only person who has truly cared about me, unconditionally, since I first came to the city. You've done enough for me.”

“Don't say that, dammit! Don't _ever_ say that. All of that fooling around we did might have been in bad taste and I'm sorry. You're my best friend.”

He took another drink of his beer and almost spat it all over himself as he broke down into a series of sobs, masking his face with the other hand. “I tried Piper.”

“Hey, hey.” She picked up her chair and brought it over to his side.

“I tried to make this place the way it used to be. But there's so much dirt. I can't make it go away. It's too much.”

She came to realize that this place had been his home before the war, wondering how that didn't occur to her until now.

“Nora would be so fucking mad.” He laughed madly between sniffles as Piper pulled his hands away from his face and took them both in hers. “The mess. Her fucking eight thousand dollar sofa has been pissed on. Things were so crookedly expensive and inflated back then. God, our fucking house. Just look at it.”

“Hey,” she swallowed, “you're trying and that's what counts, right? I know it's not easy but--”

“I just thought...” He trailed off before letting out another heavy cry.

“Take your time, Blue.” She squeezed his hands and felt all of his pent up rage and pain pour out of him in one go. 

“When we got back from Railroad HQ, I felt like this cloud of shit had swallowed me up. After the Institute and Shaun and that fucking pet synth he made out of his eleven year-old self – Liam's note just drove it all home. All of them were full of it, even Desdemona, but I'm the biggest sack of shit of all. But even sacks of shit have loose ends, Pipes. Even me. I just thought it was time to come back here. Finally. Even if it meant not seeing you and Dogmeat again for awhile.”

She groaned. “That mutt's been eating my drafts, Blue, and shedding all over the place. Nat adores him though. Continue.”

“Love that dog.” Nate grinned. “I was hoping I could bring Dogmeat up here if I could make this place nice, livable. I would have never let Nora get a dog. I was such an asshole. I remember she wanted one really bad before we got hitched but we were never home. She didn't even spend a lot of time in our apartment when I was overseas. Made her too lonely, I guess. I came back here so I could bring Nora home. Should have done that a long time ago. But she's warm now and can rest forever with our baby boy. Shaun.” He watched the back door with a forlorn look and then met Piper's eyes. It was the first time that he'd shared more than a mention of his wife's name to her in the year and a half that they'd known each other. Piper was incredibly grateful that he felt comfortable to do so. 

“Not matter what you think,” Piper said, “you can be a difficult sack of shit but you're a good person, Nate. I've seen it.” She pressed a palm to his chest. “It's all in here. I know it's corny but it's true. I wouldn't even want to be associated with you if you had an air that you were perfect and unbreakable or something like that.”

“I feel the same. Guess I have to cut ties with you then.” Nate joked.

“Bleh. Don't even joke about that. That wound is fresher than I thought.”

Nate finished his beer and then brought the bottle down hard onto the table top. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I don't know about you but I'm feeling pretty hungry right now.”

~

Piper was always prepared in the realm of snacking but what she wasn't prepared for was meeting someone who actually knew how to prepare and cook things properly. Her friend's desire to eat something, looking the way he did then, made her feel determined to let him sit back while she did it all herself. Of course the only problem was that Nate's fridge was filled with booze not delicious food. 

On the plus side the whole reason why Nate had been on the roof in the first place was that his body was finally starting to scream out for real nourishment and not baking chocolate he salvaged from the pantry of other homes on the block. He'd spotted a lone Radstag out in the woods with his binoculars and was planning to set out to hunt the beast until Piper waltzed into the neighborhood. At the mention of this Piper seemed enthused enough at wanting to go out there to find it with him.

Piper made her companion at least drape a blanket over his shoulders when he refused the use of her padded jacket multiple times on the way down to the creek. He was still shivering, and moving slow, but was perfectly attuned to any signs of wildlife ambling among the rocks and brush. It was still early in the afternoon, too, so they wouldn't be losing any light soon.

They found the beast, a smaller one of its kind, settling on the banks of the Misty Lake river. Nate's stomach began to growl at the sight of its twisted antlers poking out among the trees. The Radstag was severely wounded after his first couple of shots so he could line up a clean shot to the head and finish it pretty quickly. The beast tumbled lifelessly onto the bank and the pair tread carefully on the rocks in the water so they could wrap it up in a tarp with a rope for easy moving back to the house.

Understandably Piper was just excited that she was able to team up with her Blue again... even if it was only temporarily. She could see all of the life behind his eyes as he talked about having a campfire dinner with her, teaching her how to cook game. It painted a life out before her, one where she surely couldn't see being apart from him.


	2. Speak Low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited conclusion to this little post-game story. Things get steamy but nonetheless still teary, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Peggy Lee's version of "Speak Low" at least 20 times on repeat while trying to get this story "right". I recommend a listen while reading or after or not it's up to you :)

The fire pit crackled and popped, raging colors. The irises of Nate's greys shined wildly in the glow. He knelt down and placed skewered chunks of meat onto the spit over the flames.

“That should be enough, you think?”

“Hm? Yeah. Looks great.” Piper pulled the blanket tighter around her body.

“He was just a little guy so we won't be wasting anything.” 

“Easy.” She steadied him under his arms as he winced through the obvious pain shooting through his legs, helping him onto his feet. “Sure you're okay?”

“Mhm.” He nodded a few times, pulling at the hem of his bloodstained shirt. “I'm gonna change into something else. Just let it cook, don't worry about turning it or anything.”

“Got it.” She tried to cover a grin with her top lip. “Put something warmer on, huh? You could get seriously ill, Blue.”

His voice changed in pitch and she couldn't tell if he was imitating a child or Nat in particular, “Ugh. Fine.”

He sauntered off into the house with a smug look on his face at her mock fury.

Piper watched a black bird dart out of the safety of the massive tree at the end of the street and curve towards Concord. She couldn't help but turn her head back to the door out of fear that Nate would vanish on her all over again.

~

In the time following Nate's disappearance, it took a blow to the head for Piper's hope to return. 

While she faltered and occasionally stumbled through a whirlwind of public attention upon returning to her work in Diamond City, fueled by riots and the sacking of Geneva from her role as interim mayor by the elites of the Upper Stands (the well-meaning, former secretary was back in office in no time), Piper found that she couldn't leave her city behind during a time of crisis.

Life went on. Piper threw herself into her work, attempting to balance journalism with being present for Nat. Dogmeat wandered the market streets with his head low but opted to follow Nick on his next chase. Piper tried her best to hide the anxiety that was weighing her down but when the lights went out at the Publick, she clutched the pillow her Blue used to bury his face in on lucky nights. It still smelled faintly of cinnamon and the affection they'd made in her bed. She told herself she'd take it all back, all of the drunken fooling around, if she could have her best friend back.

Piper never once expected that a team-up with Diamond City Security's golden boy, Danny Sullivan, would change the story entirely. Despite her increased esteem among Diamond City folk, she kept a distance and refused to trust anyone unless they were named Nick Valentine or Ellie Perkins. Danny had become an exception to this rule: they hadn't liked each other very much until Piper was the one to stick him with a Stimpack after McDonough went on the fritz and popped a few caps in his stomach. After that he'd come to be a lot more lenient with her comings and goings (and any trouble that entailed) and made a point to awkwardly thank her for saving his life more than seemed acceptable. Thus, when her only friends were busy, she decided to drag him and a wagon along on an ink and paper supply run to the ruins of Cambridge University.

It was in the depths of the Cambridge Metro station that the pair had gotten themselves pinned inside of a subway car with a hungry Yao Guai on their heels. A well-placed shot to the face blinded the mutated bear in one eye as it lumbered after Piper towards the back entrance of the subway car. She was running at full speed down the narrow car when she lost her footing and dove headfirst into a corner of seating, making impact with a sickening _thwap_! Upon flipping onto her back, she anticipated a fight against becoming instant bear food but instead saw the Yao Guai running the opposite way and the door sliding into place in its leave, trapping her inside. As the world whirled around her in a blur, she heard Danny shouting and something plinking against the steel frame of the subway car. She fought and fought to keep her eyes open but in lieu of her safety she fell unconscious. 

Danny's idea of a distraction, throwing rocks, had worked almost surprisingly well. In a last instant he'd somehow managed to squeeze between the wheels of the subway train, elbow-over-elbow, and up through a grate in the floor as the Yao Guai roared westbound, chasing a phantom into the tunnels.

~

Piper awoke to the smell of burnt wood with a damp towel over her eyes. The hilarious image of Danny wheeling her in the wagon to the outskirts of Cambridge empty handed soothed her as he spoke of what had happened after she hit her head.

“I think you might be concussioned, Piper.”

“Concussed.” She chuckled amid the shock. “No kidding 'cause I sure feel fine after lining up a strike with my bowling ball-of-a-skull.”

“Concussioned, concussed, whatever! At least... at least you're okay? We're not far from Bunker Hill so we can get you checked out there.” He scratched the stubble on his chin, a hideous sound like that made the pounding in her head slip in like the tide.

~

Piper had blacked out on the ride in the wagon again. She woke up flailing, heart punching in her chest. A man with a pencil-thin mustache and beady eyes bent over her, thumbing her temples.

“There she is!” He had a smile that made her feel filthy.

Then, a hand on her shoulder. “It's alright. He's here to help!”

_Shut up, Danny._ She could feel that her cheeks were sticky with tears.

“You got quite a bit of swelling in this pretty head of yours, lady. Nothin' the Doc hasn't seen before though.” Her vision was shaky, still, she made out a stripe of duct-tape on the doctor's lab coat that read _Weathers_. “Just gotta take it easy for awhile, Miss Wright. Not much else you can do either than try not to bang it up again chasing the bionic men. Hah! Sorry.”

“Hear that, Piper?”

She groaned as Weathers beamed a pocket flashlight in her eyes. “That hurt?”

“Yeah, well, that'd blind anyone.” She said.

“Get used to it. Your gonna wake up damning the light for the next few weeks.” The shark smile again. “I'd suggest investing in some shades.”

~

Doc Weathers wasn't kidding about the temporary light sensitivity. Piper sat hunched over the bar at Joe Savoldi's the next morning unable to tell if the coffee was making her condition worse or the incessant bickering between Old Man Savoldi and his son.

“Top up, Miss?” 

“Sure.” Piper swallowed, sliding the cup across to Savoldi. Lowering her maroon jacket down from where it hung off the back of her head and onto her shoulders she winced and scanned the Bunker Hill market. The Battle seemed like a far-off memory: Railroad Agents blown to pieces, Brotherhood laser beams lighting up the night, how Nate had kissed her in the heat of the moment before he followed the chaos into the fort. _As if he'd never see her again._ She felt a tightness in the back of her throat. The outpost had cleaned up well.

“Mind if I sit here?” 

Piper brought her head up again and found a steaming cup in front of her and Savoldi's son shuffling away. “Nope.”

“Rough night?” The woman's voice was like silk and had a warmth to it that could only come from someone who smoked heavily. Starkly familiar.

“You have _no_ idea. I hit my head and--” Piper turned and saw a swoop of honey brown hair and wolfish grin. “Desdemona!”

“Hey,” She exhaled. “Let's keep it down, huh?”

Piper was overcome with awkwardness seeing the Railroad Alpha outside of HQ like this. She hadn't seem her since Patriot's funeral and even that was an awkward affair. To keep it brief: Nate and Dez had a bit of a messy and, in Piper's totally-unbiased opinion, unhealthy fling at one point. The man was hurting, badly, and trying to get answers at the mercy of the Railroad. Dez also happened to be an older, fetching person who had loved and lost and had no shame in getting what she wanted, no matter how hollow. Piper admired Dez though, no matter how much she seemed to despise her. All Piper had done was stumble into Dez trying to comfort Nate in the collapsed tunnel after the funeral.

_“Welp, she's here now.” Desdemona clapped Nate on the back and strolled past Piper._

_“Dez!” Nate said. “Don't be like that.”_

_Piper. The threat._

She still thought about what she could have possibly done to make Dez dislike her: wondering if she reeked of a budding romance that day, that there was _something_ going on between her and Nate, or what. For unspoken reasons Nate and Piper were careful when and where they explored this aspect of their relationship and kept it secret due to their increasingly public professional lives.

Piper would also be lying if she said she wasn't enamored with Desdemona, in the way of which she had been with Magnolia. There was a lot of crossfire. Piper braced herself for whatever Dez had coming.

“Code Blue.” Dez smirked.

The words made Piper become the most alert in months. Like if Nat dangled a sugary snack over her nose to jolt her from sleep. “W-what?”

“You've got it that bad, huh?” Dez snorted. Without a hint of insincerity, she placed a folded up piece of paper in her Piper's palm and folded both hands around hers. “I have undercover agents everywhere, Piper. I find people when the time comes, meaning you, don't I?” 

With shaking hands, Piper unfolded the piece of paper to discover it was a piece from an old roadmap of pre-war Boston. Concord was underlined in red ink for reference and a small area to the north west was circled above. Dez tapped the circle with her finger a few times.

Piper's eyebrows creased together. “There's gotta be a catch, Dez? Surely...”

“Some folks feel lost without him and his leadership. I know I was. But you _aren't_. Why?”

She watched Dez quizzically. “I... don't have a choice to be?”

“But you love him. You love him like hell so you can't help but sacrifice your own happiness at the thought that he _could be_ happy out there.”

She shook her head. “I don't know... what to say.”

“Don't. You love him unselfishly, that's about as real as you can get. Just...” Dez trailed off. “He talked his head off about you most nights. As if you were the only living person in this scorched wasteland he didn't have to pretend to care about. He _needs_ you. You're the only one who can bring him back.”

“Not gonna lie,” Piper stifled a laugh, “I always thought you kinda hated my guts.”

“I did.” She sighed. “I was jealous. You're young, pretty, and volatile, but you have a heart of gold contrary to public opinion. I saw that in you later, after I'd been so cruel.”

“Hey, it was a crazy time.”

“But I'll never deny that you, and your loyalty, were invaluable to the Railroad, Piper. Never. This is the most I can do.” Dez placed her hand over the map in Piper's once again. “Bring my agent home.”

~

Another night at Bunker Hill, another day that had left Piper tossing in her sleeping bag with the map pressed to her chest. Danny would take her home in the morning. She didn't care that he, or Nick, or anyone would try to tell her to stay put. She was going to buy the most ugly protective headgear she could find and leave for Nate's hideout as soon as she got back to Diamond City. Nat would be thrilled.

~

And there she was: eating dinner with the bastard after he'd tried to shoot her in the head earlier that afternoon.

They ate on flimsy paper plates and left the bones in coffee mugs at the base of the fire. Piper was known for her appetite but Nate stuffed himself silly with the roasted Radstag, wondering out loud between bites if the meat had always tasted that good. He washed it all down with another beer when he was done and Piper surely thought he'd be sick in a few hours.

After dark Nate gathered a bucket full of dirt and sand from the road to extinguish the fire. Piper knew that she'd have to go soon if she wanted to make it back home safely but the thought of leaving him made her anxious. She knew, deep down, that it was going to be a careful process, reeling him back into “society” so to speak, but she wanted him to do it on his own terms. He needed to get healthy.

He brewed coffee in the kitchen and she told him about what was going on in the Great Jewel, minding to keep out things like “everyone misses you!” and “you should come help me get dirt on Moe Cronin's latest dubious scam at the winter solstice gathering!” no matter how much she was tempted to. Nat came up a few times, too, and her predicament with Sheng Kawolski: how the cute little punk had better lay off trying to earn Nat's affection or else she was going to deck him again after school. This earned a genuine laugh from Nate and it comforted Piper to know that he was still her kid sister's biggest fan. He tried, and failed, to give Piper a handful of caps to compensate Nat for taking care of Dogmeat. Then came talk about Piper's concussion, the whole reason why she was wearing that stuffy flight helmet earlier in the first place, and Desdemona. 

Piper had the map piece in her pocket and slid it across the table for Nate to see.

He pursed his lips. “She found it.”

“Yeah, I mean, Dez gave her whole 'I have eyes everywhere in the Commonwealth' spiel and--”

“No, I mean, she found my book. I lost it on my way to Old North Church actually. It's no wonder that she found it.”

“Probably kept it as a trophy.”

“Maybe, maybe.” He blushed. “Back when I wasn't used to that thing, the Pip-Boy, I kept a journal with an old map just in case the damn RobCo-rendered one glitched out on me. This,” He pointed to the circle of red ink. “This isn't even here, Pipes. That's the Red Rocket.”

“You were there for awhile after getting out of the freezer, right?”

“Yep. Just to get a grip on the world after it all had changed so much. Where I found Dogmeat.” His features softened at the mention of his favorite mutt. “I went to Concord after that.”

“Then the Jewel?”

“And then the Jewel.” He echoed. “Met some crazy news girl there who hijacked my whole operation and wrote my tell-all in a matter of hours.”

“Hey, watch it!” Piper burst out laughing. “That interview with the cocky Vault Boy kept me and my sister fed for two whole weeks. It was free press!”

~

Icy rain battered the tarps and what was left of the roof over their heads. Nate leaned in the doorway of his bedroom, trying not to put all of his weight on Piper as she helped him over to the mattress. All of the activity and the wearing off of the booze had strained and stiffened his legs. Surely the weather wasn't helping much either. With every step the fabric of his jeans tightened against the bruising and whatever might have been sprained underneath.

“All good?”

“Yeah.” He straightened his back up against the headboard and stretched an arm out to fiddle with the radio on the nightstand. The DCR station yielded non-stop, Travis-free programming into the late hours so what could go wrong? “Would you mind grabbing those blankets off the chair?”

There was at least a whole set of chairs, seats piled with various junk, in every corner of the room. Piper bumped into a cabinet leaning over its top to reach the particular rocking chair draped with blankets. There were a series of parallel lines and dots marking through the thick layer of dust on the cabinet. It looked like there had once been picture frames lining its counter, a lot of them: all of the “firsts”, silly date mementos, family picnics, wedding photos, baby pictures, ones from when Nate was stationed in Shanghai. Piper's heart twisted just thinking about it, that all of those captured memories were too painful for Nate to see anymore.

She unfolded the blankets and layered them over his legs. Inside, she couldn't tell if her stomach was churning because of the Radstag or not. Piper never considered herself to be a superstitious sort, that had been characteristic of her mother and the Synth-snatching propaganda of the Publick an exception, but in that moment she couldn't help feeling like she was intruding on something. The weight of what this house had once been to her friend bringing her back to reality. Home. Shaun. Nora.

In turn, Nate brought Piper out of her thoughts as she stood awkwardly by the bedside. 

“Earth to space cadet Piper. _Kzzsh_. Do you read me? _Kzzsh_.”

He cupped his lips and made the radio hiss with his mouth. For a moment everything was rosy again in Piper's eyes.

“Really? Did you have to?” _Don't make this harder for me to leave than it already is, Blue._

“You can sit, y'know?” He patted the edge of the mattress. “You okay?”

“Do ya need anything else?” She pretended not to hear him over Billie Holiday's voice hovering under the curtain of rain as she sat down. It was his eyes that bore into her, those hollow greys that had startled her so badly earlier that afternoon.

“It's awfully late, Blue.”

“Hey,” He reached for her hand out of desperation, easing it out of the fist that had been pressing into the mattress. 

“I have to go.” She couldn't bring herself to pull the Nat card. “It's late. But this has been... wonderful.”

She hadn't promised Nat or anyone else anything. It was her mind that was betraying her, second-guessing, tangled up in her thoughts, afraid. She'd gotten herself scrambled for sure.

“Piper, the concussion. It's not safe for you to be out there all alone. Listen to it out there!”

“Oh, and it's okay for you to go alone and leave everything – everyone who damn well cares about you - out of the blue like that?”

She couldn't believe what had spilled out but Nate's expression remained unchanged, unsurprised that she'd shoot from the hip like that, it was the journalist's second nature, but he absorbed the blow. Peggy Lee's rendition of an old Kurt Weill standard, “Speak Low”, crackled on the radio.

“God, Blue, I'm sorry.” She tore her hand away from his and covered her face in disbelief.

“I'll forgive the puns, that's for sure. But you weren't wrong. I'm not myself. I haven't _been_ myself for awhile now. I don't know how it ever could be enough but I'm sorry.” He scooted forward as much as he could and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I'm sorry.” He pressed his forehead against her temple. “If I have to tell you that every day for the rest of my life I will.”

In the complete Piper-way of dealing with her nervousness in the spirit of intimacy, she snorted. “What's that supposed to mean?”

At just the touch of his lips, lower, to where her hair had been parted to expose her neck she exhaled the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding in. _Damn you, Blue._

“I'll take the couch if you want. It's up to you.” His stubble caught her skin as she swayed into his hold.

“What? No.”

Given how limited his mobility had been it surprisingly didn't take much for Nate to turn her over, letting her fall back against the headboard. Their mouths collided in a frenzy that didn't last quite as long as either of them had desired before Piper stopped him.

“Not here.” It came out as barely a whisper as she tried to catch her breath, all of the heat rushing to her cheeks. 

He pointed to the stained carpeting she hadn't noticed that spread out from underneath the bed. The nursery room pattern was dappled in cartoon rocketships and star clusters.

“No. Even worse. The hell, Nate?”

“And I'm guessing it won't make a difference that I lugged this bed from another house down the street, huh?” he said. “I'm sorry.”

She forgave him wordlessly, pulling him down for one more kiss, even if the soul of his wife was damning them from above. She couldn't help but think about these things.

“Guess I changed your mind... about staying?”

She frowned. “Well, I'm not staying for _you_ if that's what you think. You guessed wrong.”

The couch would have to do.

~

Getting comfortable on the three-seater in the living room wasn't a challenge. Piper hadn't minded starting their foreplay up again from there but she could tell he was struggling to find the energy to keep going. The closeness of their bodies made it easy to guess of how often Nate had starved himself since September. She could feel the ridges of his ribcage as she snaked an arm around his back. He was sick, she knew. Nothing had tainted his spirits but the physical wear and tear of this life he was trying to have out here was slowly killing him. If Piper had come a week, hell, even days later who knows if he would've still been kicking. 

They held each other, fully awake, as the rain blew overhead leaving it to the occasional murmur and the radio to keep off thoughts about the cold.

“What would make you happy out here Blue?”

“Hmm,” he pondered. “I don't know. Living in the country with a bunch of dogs?”

Her laughter rumbled through him. “Like a dog sanctuary?”

“Yeah. I don't know. They could just run around and crap on junk. Me and the mutts would have eachother's backs.”

Though she'd never admit it, Piper thought his idea was utterly adorable. “You're a special one alright.”

“You'd be able to visit whenever you want.”

“Great.” She reveled in feeling his warmth, hearing his heart beat in his chest, even the smell of stale sweat on his clammy skin was a strange comfort. He still needed her help. She knew it would be a long and arduous battle with the guilt and grief that overwhelmed him everyday. Thinking back to Desdemona's sentiments kept her optimistic though. 

There was light, much brightness, that Piper could bring to his fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for readin'!


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